This invention relates to a card-shaped electronic apparatus with an embossed surface and more particularly to such apparatus containing electronic components and having surface protrusions processed so as not to be easily crushed.
There are currently in use many types of card-shaped electronic apparatus such as credit cards having an embossed surface such that the cardholder's name, code, etc. can be clearly ascertained. Such a card may typically look as shown in FIG. 5 with a magnetic tape 12 attached to a main body 11 with embossed sections 13 describing the holder's name and code. FIG. 6 shows schematically a sectional view of such a card 11 with protrusions in the embossed section 13. Such protrusions are created by means of an instrument referred to as an embosser.
As another example of card-shaped electronic apparatus, FIG. 7 shows the structure of a conventional magnetic card 17 with a core of a vinyl chloride resin material with thickness of about 0.5 mm sandwiched from both sides with coating films with thickness of about 0.1 mm such that its total thickness is about 0.76 mm. Protrusions produced by an embossing operation are usually present all over the card surface. IC cards are expected to be the cards of the next generation. In the case of IC cards with display means, however, a liquid crystal display, a battery, a printed wiring board, LSI circuits, peripheral components, etc. are formed all over the card area and such a card cannot be subjected to an embossing process of the usual kind with an embosser by which protrusions are generally formed on conventional card-shaped electronic apparatus.